Jose Mourinho was sent off for a second time in a month as his Manchester United side drew against West Ham at Old Trafford.
The Portuguese boss kicked a water bottle in reaction to referee Jon Moss showing Paul Pogba a yellow card for diving. Replays showed West Ham’s Mark Noble did not make contact with the France midfielder.
Mourinho, sent off by Mark Clattenburg during last month’s 0-0 draw at home to Burnley, got his marching orders from the official moments later.
Moss also dismissed him in October 2015, when Mourinho was in charge of Chelsea – again during a match against West Ham.
The drama came after two goals were scored in the opening quarter of the match.
West Ham took the lead in the second minute when Diafra Sakho headed in from Dimitri Payet’s free-kick. Zlatan Ibrahimovic was partly at fault for the goal but made amends in the 21st minute when he nodded in from Pogba’s dinked delivery.
The hosts were thwarted on several occasions by Hammers goalkeeper Darren Randolph, while Jesse Lingard had the ball in the net for the home side but it was correctly ruled out for offside.
Mourinho is becoming a familiar figure in the stands after red mist descended for the second time in a matter of weeks.
Earlier this month he was banned and fined for an incident in the tunnel at half-time during the match against Burnley, and in a separate case was fined £50,000 for comments made about referee Anthony Taylor before United’s match with Liverpool.
Both incidents came a year after Mourinho served a one-match stadium banfor an abusive rant at Moss at half-time during a Chelsea Premier League match at Upton Park.
He was also fined £50,000 for saying that referees were afraid to award Chelsea penalties during their 3-1 defeat by Southampton in October 2015.
Any feelings of euphoria that Manchester United had following Thursday’s 4-0 Europa League win over Feyenoord will have disappeared after this result.
Mourinho’s men are 11 points shy of leaders Chelsea following their fifth draw in seven league matches. In that period, they have only won one game.
On Sunday, they were thwarted by the brilliance of Randolph. The goalkeeper – playing only his second league game of the season – twice blocked from Ibrahimovic and made instinctive saves to deny Marcus Rashford and Lingard.
He also pushed a Henrikh Mkhitaryan shot on to the post – the follow-up was tapped into the net by the offside Lingard.
When Randolph was rounded by Ibrahimovic after an awful James Collins backpass, Cheikhou Kouyate was on hand to hook the ball clear of danger.
Manchester United assistant manager Rui Faria speaking to BBC Sport about Mourinho’s sending-off: “The referee explained it to Jose and there is nothing more to say. I think there was frustration from Jose after the yellow card for Pogba. It should be a foul for us but the referee understood it in another way.
“I don’t take over. I follow the normal procedure. The boss is Jose all the time and he passes on what is the best for the team and we just try to make it happen without having him there.”
On the match: “We did more than enough to win the game in a comfortable way.
“We didn’t and the reality is that we are playing well. The team is doing what we ask. We create the opportunities but we are not scoring the goals and we are suffering because we want to win the matches.
West Ham boss Slaven Bilic: “It might have been more but it is a great point for us, especially as we played well. I have to praise the players, who showed character, commitment and quality, especially in the second half.
“In the first half, when we scored, we were a little bit afraid because we were winning at Old Trafford and then until they scored we lost too many balls.
“In the second half, we told the players to go up on them and I was very pleased with how we played. You can’t attack here all the time.
“They tried to press when they lost the ball and if you get out of that, there is a lot of space. We were using that really well in the second half.”
BBC
